Monitoring information for CEAFM decision making: reflections on LMMA’s learning

1. Monitoring information for CEAFM decision making: reflections on LMMA’s learning Caroline Vieux- SPREP James Comley- USP

2. Previous experience- purpose of monitoring-J • Community/stakeholder involvement: • Adaptive management • Community/stakeholder learning for management • Project or organizational learning for management • Stock assessment • Project/donor M&E • Network or portfolio learning • Global or academic learning • Advocacy

3. Previous experience- what has been monitored- and how has it been done-C • Species population status – UVC, belt transects, CPUE, interviews.. • Ecological processes e.g. SPAGs - UVC • Habitat health indicators – point intercept transects, photo, videotransects • Socio-economic status including governance and compliance – Household surveys, Key informant/focus group interviews • Physical conditions (temperature) - loggers • Water quality – sampling and analysis

4. Previous experience- who has been involved in monitoring - J • Community unaided and unsupported by outside agencies • Community assisted directly by outside agency/NGO • Outside agency assisted by community • Outside researchers

5. Lessons learned- purpose of monitoring- J • LMMA network set out an ambitious framework • Need to define purpose of monitoring- ensure fit for purpose • Monitoring tied to objectives of management plan • Standardisation unlikely to equate to primary motivations/interest of individual sites

6. Lessons learnt – biological monitoring results - C Methodology issues- not surveyor • Many lessons for the biological monitoring, the main one being: In all the studies reviewed statistical power is not sufficient to detect changes, SD are too high: • Differences in the implementation of the methodologies (number and length of transects varie from site to site) = ?? ( do we really know what is the effort needed?) • Variation of transects needed between sites and species (ex from Fiji LMMA: number of transects needed to detect changes, within the tabu area: Lutjanus gibbus=153, Naso unicornis=200, Scarus ghobban:4, within the control site: Lg=38, Nu=60, Sg=5) • Not enough transects done, wrong placement • Current design not suited for most invertebrates that are too patchily distributed • Analysis done at the species level, if fish assemblage are looked at through multivariate analysis, results are more robust

7. Lessons learnt – Socio-Economic monitoring results - C • Socioeconomic monitoring: • still very new in most cases, • not many lessons to date except for LMMA network where data have been of a very poor quality. • Development of SEM-Pasifika, training conducted and funds allocated through NOAA and accessible by all PICs but interest has been quite limited so far…is it really needed? • More one-point in time socioeconomic surveys than monitoring • Perceptions: varies quite a lot from the biological surveys • CPUE: low cost and low tech compared to Uderwater Visual Census but sampling effort has to be done over a sufficient amount of time to be relevant

8. The role of communities in monitoring - J Motivations • Participation/stewardship Successes • Ability of communities to count reliably • Opportunity monitoring presents for AM Challenges • Resourcing- remuneration? • High turnover • On going comittment to monitor

9. Have monitoring results been used for management? C • Some instances of it being used- though generally results have not be widely used for adaptive management • In Fiji, PNG, 25% of the sites used the results of monitoring for adaptive management • Reasons: • Communities do not understand the results (no training on data interpretation) • Data are not significant • Other factors drive the decision-making • Adaptive management is taking place without the results of monitoring • The data are not relevant to management questions • Certain species are not accurately assessed • Data collected do not inform on resource stocks

10. Has it been worth it? What information is needed-J • 60% of budget of some project countries spent on monitoring • CBEAFM (vis-a-vis CBAM) in purest form intended to be “learning by doing”

11. Key questions/issues of concern-J • What information is needed for CEAFM • Who has responsibility for monitoring? • Who should pay for monitoring- and how much of the total budget should be spent on monitoring? • What methods are most cost effective and appropriate?

12. Direction in Fiji-J • Responsive to community needs • Re-Tired approach • Less-data monitoring at all sites • Community monitoring on specific factors- relevant to them- at small number • Ad-hoc research driven monitoring at small number of sites